Projects

Health Clinic and Institutional Support for Bashayer Women’s Project, Cairo – Egypt

In 2007, the Helwan Association for Community Development set up a medical clinic in the slum settlement of Arab Ghoneim. The clinic provides the organisation with the opportunity to contribute to the provision of health services in the community at a time when the Egyptian government is considering the amendment of the health insurance law. The law has been in place for over thirty years and its amendment is expected to further increase the financial burden on low-income groups.

Arab Ghoneim also suffers from the spread of cultural misconceptions inherited myths related to diseases, and gender discrimination is rife, further decreasing the quantity and quality of medical services delivered to women and children in the community. The project will therefore complement the provision of medical services at the clinic with awareness-raising sessions and an outreach program to increase the community's awareness of health problems and attract more people, specifically women, to the clinic.

The clinic will require support to include more specializations relevant to the health problems of the community, hold a number of awareness raising sessions as well as provide training to 10 health workers who will conduct an outreach programme, all with the objective of raising awareness of health issues in the area and the services made available by the clinic. The clinic is expected to benefit approximately 500 families.

The project will offer a health insurance scheme, whereby each family pays a subscription fee, which makes them entitled to a discount at the clinic. The price has been determined vis a vis the other fees collected in the area, while bearing in mind the need to reach the most impoverished of the community. The scheme has been devised to provide an incentive for families to draw on the clinic more often rather than neglect health problems, and to draw-in all members of the family, thus increasing revenue for the Association. Although health programmes are traditionally difficult to sustain financially, the anticipated cost-recovery of the clinic is estimated at 17%.

Given that the organisation employs a comprehensive approach in its work by tackling determinants of income, education, and gender discrimination, the project will therefore also support the production unit by training and employing an additional 50-60 women; support three post-literacy classes for women; and support the listening programme for women victims of domestic violence.